


Courting Death

by HomuraBakura



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Assassin!Yuuri, Knives, M/M, Noble!Dennis, Possessive Behavior, Start of a Very Unhealthy Relationship, Suicide Attempt, This is so Unhealthy Holy Shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 14:24:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9127630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HomuraBakura/pseuds/HomuraBakura
Summary: Dennis was planning on offing himself tonight, which offends the assassin that was sent to kill him.  Yuuri, the notorious Lily assassin, might decide that he has other plans for his target.





	

“Please don't tell me you're about to do my job for me. You have no idea how embarrassing that will be for me.”

Dennis flinched at the sudden voice, and his foot  _ slipped.  _ He swore, arms wheeling as he lost his footing on the chair, crashing down towards—

He didn't hit the ground. He felt, almost gently, against a slender arm, holding him suspended over the ground. For a moment, Dennis could only blink, dizzy and shocked and unable to see through the darkness.

He saw his rescuer's eyes first. They glinted with the faint slivers of moonlight through Dennis' large, open bay window. A breeze tickled between them, rustling the intruder's hair. It looked jet black in the darkness, curled around his face and neatly slicked back from his forehead. He was pale, though, Dennis could tell that much...

And there was something...wrong about his eyes. Something....

…predatory.

Dennis opened his mouth to speak, but the young man simply grabbed him by the chin with his free hand, tilting Dennis' face towards the moonlight to get a look at him. Those dark, predator eyes traced the sides of Dennis' face, ran the length of his lips and down his throat. Then they flicked briefly upwards, towards the chair that Dennis had fallen from.

Or more accurately, the looped rope hanging from the ceiling above that chair.

The young man let out a very quiet huff.

“Do you not even know how to tie a knot?” he said. “That wouldn't have held you up long enough to kill you.”

Dennis felt a flush grow over his cheeks.

“Release me,” he said, trying to struggle up out of the supporting grip.

All at once, the supportive gesture turned into something harsh and biting. Before Dennis knew what was happening, he was on the floor, his head spinning and spots flaring over his eyes. There was a hand on his throat, and the young man was sitting across his chest, pinning him to the floor. He considered him for a moment, head slightly tilted like a wolf considering a rabbit in a trap. He reached into the inside pocket of his cloak and withdrew...a thin knife. The young man hefted it for a moment, turning it slowly so that the metal caught every inch of the moonlight, so that Dennis was positive to see it. He felt a twist in his stomach and his body tensed instinctively.

That brought a smirk to his captor's face.

“What?” he said, briefly drawing the knife over his lips. “From the looks of things, it looks as though you wanted to die anyway.”

He leaned in slowly until their faces were but inches apart.

“Isn't it easier to let someone else do it for you?”

_ Assassin _ , Dennis realized all at once. He almost laughed.  _ I didn't know I was that important. _

The assassin pressed the edge of the blade lightly to the side of Dennis' face, forcing him to turn his head slightly. He dragged the tip gently against Dennis' throat, enough so that he felt it but not enough to break the skin. What...what was  _ taking _ him so long? If he was an assassin, why was he waiting??

Dennis felt a hollow laugh curling up in his throat.

“Are you going to kill me, or will you leave me in peace to do it myself?” he said.

The young man hesitated, his eyes flickering at the sound of Dennis' voice. A faint smile came to his face—what was that for? The assassin tapped the tip of the blade to Dennis' lips.

“Ah,” he said quietly. “I almost thought you weren't going to make a sound.”

He hummed slightly, considering.

“Your voice is as pretty as you are, little bird,” he whispered. “It almost seems a pity to cut you.”

What the hell? What was going on?

The assassin's hand moved from pinning Dennis down to trace the curves of Dennis' face. His eyes glittered in the dark, distant and alien. It was like he was looking at something that wasn't quite human...something...strange...

The strangest part of all was that Dennis didn't feel any fear at all.

Was it because he had been planning on killing himself tonight anyway? The irony of it wasn't lost on him. Was it because he was in shock from the surreality of it all?

Or was it just because....because somehow, when the assassin's eyes found his, he saw something...something like.... _ affinity. _

The assassin's thumb ran lightly over Dennis' lips, as though testing the way they felt.

“Who...are you?” Dennis found himself whispering.

The young man hesitated, his head tilting so that his hair fell across the edge of his face. Then he smiled, wide with teeth that glinted like a wolf.

“Who?” he said. “I think you may have heard of me. I'm the Lily.”

Dennis sucked in a breath. Of course he knew the Lily. An infamous assassin who had taken the lives of well over two hundred nobles since the war started. The Lily had no allegiance, could not be bought. He was said to only take the assignments he found interesting. There were secrets to contacting him that took channel upon channel of information to even come close to finding him.  He left a still living lily planted in the killing wounds of his victims.  There was some horrific magic to them that allowed them to grow using blood and flesh as nutrients.

Dennis had seen someone killed by the Lily in the past—one of his father’s trading partners.  They had found him together just before a meeting, dead in his own meeting room, the roots of the lily already having consumed most of him so that he was almost unrecognizable, blood red flowers sprouting all over his body.

_ And someone hired  _ the Lily _ to kill me?  _ Dennis thought faintly.   _ Who would have guessed that? _

He actually felt dizzy thinking about it—he actually felt faintly  _ impressed _ with himself.  Well, if it took an assassin for him to finally feel like he was worth something, that would be the best irony of his entire shithole of a life.

The Lily smiled at him again, but this time it was...fainter.  Softer.  He leaned in towards Dennis so that he could whisper this into his lips.

“But you can call me Yuuri.”

Dennis laughed softly, finding strangely at ease for being face to face with a serial murder.

“Do you tell all your victims that before you kill them?”

Yuuri licked his lips briefly.

“No.  Only you.  So far.”

Dennis tilted his head, raising an eyebrow.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Yuuri chose to simply caress his cheek again, as though memorizing the feel of his cheek beneath his fingers.

“Why were you trying to die tonight?” he said instead of answering.  “What makes you, Lord Dennis Macfield, want to die?”

“Do you normally get so chatty with your victims?”

“I could simply kill you now, if you’d prefer.”

Dennis wanted to roll his eyes and say yes, of course.

There was something in Yuuri’s eyes though...something...oddly fascinating.  It stayed his tongue.  He shrugged.

“No point in existing, I suppose,” he said.  “I’ll never be happy so might as well knock myself off.”

Yuuri considered him impassively for a beat.

“How boring,” he said after a few moments.  “You’d make a very ugly plant, you know.”

“You’re charming.”

“Laugh if you want, but my flowers are picky,” Yuuri said, tapping Dennis on the lips.  “I think they might be offended if I fed you to them.”

Dennis actually laughed.

“Add them to the list of people—things, I suppose—that don’t want me, then.”

Yuuri actually frowned at that.  His fingers danced over the skin of Dennis’ throat.

“Do you find death fascinating?” he asked softly.  “Is that why you want it?”

On another day, Dennis probably would have said no.  Death just was, to him.  He just wanted to finally stop thinking. Stop feeling.  Death was the mean to the end.

But he was staring it in the face, right now, he realized.

That was what was wrong with Yuuri’s eyes.  They weren’t human because they belonged to Death.

“Yes,” he said, staring Yuuri’s strange— _ beautiful _ —eyes of death.  “Yes, I do.”

A smile exploded over Yuuri’s face.  He leaned down into Dennis’ face so that his hair tickled over Dennis’ cheeks.

“Then come see it firsthand,” he said.

“Is that how you tell your victims you’re about to kill them?”

Yuuri chuckled.

“I’ve been watching you for so long, Dennis Macfield,” he whispered, almost lovingly.  “Deciding how I wanted your last moments to be....I couldn’t decide, you know....until right now.”

He got so close that their lips were almost touching.

“I want to see what happens when those dead eyes of yours come to life,” he said.  “I have no business killing people who are already dead.”

Dennis chuckled.

“So what are you proposing?”

Yuuri smirked.

“Leave,” he said.  “Take my hand and leave.  Now.  I’ll teach you how to kill, Dennis Macfield....I’ll keep you and your pretty eyes with me until I see them light up....until I see them sparkle...”

Dennis actually laughed again—he had the oddest sensation in his chest.  It wasn’t a bad feeling, but he didn’t know if it was good either.

“So you want to raise me up until I’m worthy of killing, like a pig to the slaughter?” he said.

“If you don’t want to, I could kill you now,” Yuuri said, shrugging.  “But I don’t think you want that...I think you want to court death a little longer...a little more  _ intimately... _ ”

He laughed as he leaned back, his breath no longer tickling Dennis’ lips, and Dennis felt strange cold without his breath.  Yuuri pulled his knife to his lips and kissed the blade briefly.  Then he flipped it back into his hand and offered the hilt to Dennis.

“Well?” he said.  “Will you be my prisoner, or my prey tonight?”

Dennis caught those strange, sparkling, deathly eyes.  Death’s eyes.

Would his eyes look like that too if he went with Yuuri?

For the first time in years, he felt...curious.

He reached tentatively upwards, fingers brushing the pommel of the blade.  Then he wrapped his hand around the hilt, feeling the heft and weight of the blade.

Yuuri laughed, and his hand slithered down to grab Dennis’ wrist, standing up and dragging Dennis to his feet all at once, pulling Dennis roughly to his chest.  Dennis was shocked to find that he was actually taller than the famed Lily.

“You’re mine now, Dennis Macfield,” he said.  “ _ Now _ you belong to death.”

Dennis could feel the Lily’s knife still gripped in his own hand, and death’s hands cold against his cheeks, death’s eyes glittering with a wicked smile at him.

He supposed he should probably be upset.  Scared, even, maybe.

Instead, he felt more free than he ever had in his entire life.


End file.
